FACTORS AFFECTING DIMINISHING RETURNS FOR SEARCHING DEEPER¹

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Guid, Matej² | Bratko, Ivan²

Affiliations: Ljubljana, Slovenia

Note: [1] This article is a revised version of a contribution with the same title to the Computer Games Workshop 2007 held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 15-17, 2007. The revised version has been subjected to the Journal’s normal refereeing procedure.

Note: [2] Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Email : {matej.guid,bratko}@fri.uni-lj.si.

Abstract: The phenomenon of diminishing returns for additional search effort has been observed by several researchers. We study experimentally additional factors which influence the behaviour of diminishing returns that manifest themselves in go-deep experiments. The results obtained on a large set of more than 40,000 positions from chess grandmaster games using the programs CRAFTY, RYBKA, and SHREDDER show that diminishing returns depend on (a) the values of the positions, (b) the quality of the evaluation function of the program used, and to some extent also on (c) the phase of the game, and the amount of material on the board.

DOI: 10.3233/ICG-2007-30203

Journal: ICGA Journal, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 75-84, 2007